Steven Wandering and Focused (From "Families," chapter 7.)

    (Note: Thanks to Lizanne Leh, Kathy Gaughan, Maureen Smith-Kuntzman, Jim Karcher, and Jim Bradley, Sr. of the Facebook page "You know You Lived in Olney If You Remember" for correcting my memory about the Hein(t)z plant.)


       Steven left the Harper’s a short time after dinner. The whole house was on edge and he felt nervous. Instead of going straight home, he took a long looping walk around the neighborhood. His thoughts kept returning to the older guys killed in the war. He didn’t know the ones Mrs. Harper had talked about, but he knew kids at school and some kids at Inky who had older brothers in Viet Nam. He walked north on American, where some older boys were washing their dad’s Buick and they gave him a drink of water from their hose. The water was warm and tasted of rubber, but he was thirsty and thanked them. For a while, he sat on a wall and watched cars and buses going up and down Olney avenue. Across the street, a family with six kids piled into a station wagon, the kids arguing over who would sit on the backward facing third row of seats. Tired of sitting, Steven drifted along Olney avenue, then crossed it and walked to the quieter, less travelled Chew Street. He walked past Mama Dea’s Pizza and wished he had money to buy a pizza. He wasn’t really hungry, but he didn’t need to be hungry to eat pizza. Mama Dea’s was the best in his opinion, even though his mother and Agnes preferred Peppino’s. Steven planned to win Helen to his side. He realized that he was walking in the direction of B & O and considered playing basketball, but changed his mind before he reached the bridge over the railroad tracks. He stood on the overpass and looked down on the parking lot of the Heintz Factory. Trucks full of airplane and car parts where pulling away from the loading docks and making their way to Olney avenue and from there to Roosevelt Boulevard. When the sun began to dip behind the huge brick plant, he realized that he was a good way from home and should start heading back. 

         His mother was sleeping when he returned. She was working tonight, Steven remembered. Helen had taped a note on his door for him to come upstairs. He knocked on Agnes’ door and she called that it was open. He let himself in and saw Helen sitting at the kitchen table. 

       “Do you want a quick genealogy lesson while your Mom rests?” she asked.

       “Sure,” he said and started toward the table.

       “Before you sit down,” said Helen, “there’s Tastykakes in the cabinet. Help yourself to a glass of milk.”

      “Thanks,” said Steven enthusiastically, “Do you want one?”

      “I’ll pass,” said Helen. “I’ve eaten more Tastykakes in the past few days than I have in years.”

  

       When Steven sat down at the table, Helen passed him his family record sheet. “You use the sheets to take notes,” she said. “You keep the information in one of these.” Helen gave Steven a blank family history book she found in her genealogical materials, and showed him where to enter the information Kate had entered on the form. Helen watched Steven carefully and saw that he was surprised to see information about his father’s side of the family.

     “Did my mother do this?” he asked, tapped the end of his pen on the form.

      Helen nodded and Steven considered what it meant that his mother had acknowledged his father’s family. When they finished, Steven was disappointed at how little material he had. 

      “You start with what you know,” said Helen. “Then you go from there. It took me about six years to get as much as I have. Aunt Agnes and my Aunt Mary helped quite a bit. You have to be patient. No one is ever finished with genealogy. There’s always more to learn. The oldest person you find had parents and they had parents and they had parents and so on.”

     “Back to Adam and Eve!” said Steven. 

     “Some would say so,” agreed Helen.

      “So everybody would be related to Adam and Eve,” he said.

       “That’s one way to see it,” she said.

       “So we’re related,” said Steven. “Me and you.”

      “I guess so,” said Helen. “Hello,  cousin.” She gave him an exaggerated wave.

      “Hello, cousin Helen,” he said, smiling and returning the wave. “Where do we start?” he asked. 

       “Let me show you something,” she said. Helen rooted around in a box until she found the folder she was looking for. She held the fat folder up for Steven to see. “My Grandfather McClary, remember?” 

       Steven said that he did.

      Helen placed a photocopy in front of Steven. “These are copies of his obituaries from the Bulletin and the Inquirer. An obituary is a short article that tells people someone has died and says things about their life. They’re a good place to find information about people and their family. Go ahead. Read it.”

Steve read the obituary silently. He suddenly looked up at Helen, surprise on his face.

        “Yep, that’s me. Helen Loetz, and my sister, Louise. Me and my kid sister. The seven names before that are my cousins, his other grandchildren. It also lists his children, their husbands or wives, his wife, and his father and mother. If we start with the oldest person in your family whose death date you know, we can start building up your records.”

        While she talked, Helen drew a quick family tree of her grandfather’s relatives. “Charts are the only way of keeping everyone straight,” she said.

       Steven was fascinated by the chart taking shape as he watched. He saw that by tracing the lines of ascent or descent you could tell people’s relationship. Helen didn’t have to write “Grandfather” by Martin McClary’s name, you knew it by the position of the names and lines that connected his name to hers. He put his finger on the name Martin McClary and said, “So, he’s your Grandfather, her brother, and his son.” He finger tapped on names as he described the relationships.

       “That right,” said Helen, impressed by Steven’s swift grasp of the family tree. “And her uncle, and their cousin, and so on.”

      “That’s really neat,” said Steven. “All that stuff in a little thing, a little drawing with some names. It’s all about where you put people.”

       “A good diagram captures relationships simply,” said Helen. Without thinking, she had stopped simplifying her language.

       “Let me show you something,” he said, leaping from his chair and running toward the door. He banged his shoulder on the kitchen door frame, but kept running out of the apartment and down the stairs. Helen winced. He had banged his shoulder hard enough to stagger him, but he didn’t seem to notice. Footsteps pounded on the steps, followed by a slamming door and Steven flew into the kitchen, slamming into the opposite door frame, and flopped into his chair. He dropped three baseball cards on the table.

       “What is going in here?” said Agnes, the commotion drawing her from the living room.

       Steven was catching his breath, but managed to say, “Sorry, Mrs. McGill. I wanted to show Helen something.”

      “Good Lord,” said Agnes, shaking her head and returning to her reading. “I thought they’d started tearing the place up.” She shook her head and returned to her show.

      “You see, you see, these cards?” asked Steven, the words tumbling out of his mouth. 

       “Hold on,” said Helen. “I need a glass of water. Would you like one?”

        He nodded and slowly his breathing began to return to normal. Helen busied herself by the sink to give Steven time to calm down, then handed him a glass. 

       “Now what’s so special about these cards?” she asked. 

       “Can I borrow a piece of paper?” asked Steven.

        Helen tossed a Family Record Sheet to him. “Turn it over,” she said.

        He placed the first card near the top of the page, the second in the middle, and the third at the bottom. The cards where centered on the page. “Now, he (Steven tapped the top card) was traded for him (the middle).” Steven drew a line between the cards. The next year, he (the middle) was traded for him (the bottom).” He drew a line between the second and third cards. “Then he was traded for him (the bottom and top cards).” 

      “You see,” said Steven. “It makes a circle. You end up right back where you started. It’s like he (the top card) was traded for himself.”

      “Kind of,” said Helen. “I see what you mean.”

       “I tried to tell that to the guys. It was funny. But it was hard to explain using words.”

        “I can imagine,” said Helen. “But your diagram makes it simple. Tell me, what would you do if two players were traded for one?” She wrote “Steven Muir” next to the bottom card. “What if this rookie was traded with Cruz for Johnson, up there at the top?”

      Steven drew a line from his name to Johnson. 

     “How do you know that Muir and Cruz were traded together? On your diagram all I know is the these two were traded for Johnson, but it could have been separate trades years apart.”

       Steven erased the line from Muir to Johnson. He drew a line from Muir that joined the line from Cruz, so only one line connected the two with Johnson. Steven looked at Helen for confirmation.

“That will work,” said Helen. “So each line is a, um, ...”

      “Each line is a trade,” Steven said. 

      “I see,” said Helen. “That makes sense.”

       She then pushed her family tree into the center of the table. “Look how this diagram uses the direction of the lines. A vertical line means parent and child, a horizontal line means siblings, brothers and sisters. You might be able to use direction in your trade diagram.

       “Why is that line different?” Steven asked. “All chopped up.”

        “It’s called a broken line,” said Helen. “It means an adoption. The people are still parent and child, but by adoption.”

       “It’s getting late,” said Helen. “Take what you want and I’ll clean up the rest.” 

      “Where are the obi..., these things?” asked Steven as he searched among the papers for a missing baseball card.

      “Call them obits. It’s easier. They’re printed in newspapers. I think our best bet is the Main Library downtown. They have newspapers on microfilm. Do you know about microfilm?”

       Steven nodded. “A librarian at the library on 5th street showed me and Nancy how to use the machines for a school project.”

      “Good,” said Helen. “There are some articles I have to find for my boss, so I’ll get you started and then I’ll work next to you in case you need any help.”

     “When can we go?” asked Steven.

     “I’ve got time tomorrow. The way you’re twitching, we better ask your mother if we can go then.”